Cultural Reader

Friday, July 22, 2011

Stuart Hall: "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" –summary

The first part of Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is an historical account of the development of British popular culture in late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. This period, according to Stuart Hall, saw some deep cultural changes in urban working classes with the appearance of cultural industries products and technologies. Hall holds that this period is characterized by questions which remain relevant to this day regarding the relation between corporate produced culture and the image of popular culture as belonging to the masses.

In the main part of "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" Hall is discussing the problematic meaning of the word "popular" in "popular culture". Hall analyzes two common understandings of this concept. The first meaning of "popular" is the one of wide circulation and commerciality. Subscribers of this view often tie popular culture with manipulative consumerism and regard it as falsification and even degradation of authentic working class cultural content and tradition. Stuart Hall only partially accepts this view for on the one hand it views working class members as easily manipulated passive consumers while on the other hand seeking an "authentic" or "original" working class culture which does not really exist. Hall prefers a more dynamic and changing description of popular content and forms.

The second definition of popular culture scrutinized by Hall is the one which views popular culture as all the cultural activities of "the people". This definition is in fact a massive inventory list of various cultural and leisure activities. Hall is critical of this perspective as well for its essentialist view and it being based on the binary distinction between "the people" and the "elite".

Towards the end of "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" Stuart Hall offers another definition of popular culture which stresses its dynamic nature and constant tension and struggle. Hall understands popular culture as an ongoing process, similar the concept of Hegemony offered by Gramsci, is which relations of control and subordination are constantly shifting and certain cultural forms gain and lose support from institutions. Preferred of marginalized cultural content and forms are not fixed, according to Hall there is a constant movement and interchange between them as a result of shifting power relations, the assimilation of poplar content into "high culture" and vice versa. What Stuart Hall is essentially offering in "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is a neo-Gramscian view of the power relation between high and popular culture, with a more mutual perspective of the assimilatory take originally offered by Gramsci who thought the high hegemonic culture assimilates and sterilizes popular culture.

See: A review of Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular"

Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

Stuart Hall: "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" –review

Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" initially appeared in "People's History and Socialist Theory" (1981) – a collection of essays concerned with socialism in its British contexts. Therefore Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" relies on British popular culture and its significance to the lower working class. But since Hall is attempting to deconstruct stereotypical connections between popular culture and the working class, "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" has theoretical value in relation to the understanding of popular culture as a modern phenomenon in industrialized countries.

Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" works within the tension between the perception of popular culture as something that emanates from the working class and therefore has something authentic about it, and the understanding of popular culture as an exploitative, commercial and mass communication based ally of modern capitalism. Hall's Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" criticizes views that regard popular culture as an authentic expression of the working class and as a site for cultural resistance. Hall favors a more dynamic approach which views popular culture as changing field and as a site for struggle between different social forces over the meaning and value ascribed to popular culture.

"Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" opens with an historical account of the development of British Popular culture. Stuart Hall then proceeds to discuss the meaning of the term "popular" in the phrase "popular culture". Hall is offering three different definitions of "popular" in relation to culture, and his main point in "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is to try and point to the complexity of the relation between cultural products and content associated with "the common people" and the products and content of the culture industry. Hall points to the power relation that determine both high culture and popular culture as opposed concepts, while criticizing any attempt for an essentialist view of culture in general and popular culture in particular, and any steady association of content and cultural products with a specific social class.

see: A summary of Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular"

culture industry

Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”

Richard Shusterman: "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" – summary and review

Richard Shusterman's "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" (in "pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking art" 1992) is a defense on popular culture or popular art's statutes as an aesthetic and artistic field. Philosophy of aesthetics has often refused to relate to popular culture as a form of art on account of it lacking certain aesthetic qualities. Richard Shusterman is attempting to demonstrate how these qualities do exist in popular art, and he uses the example of rap music to demonstrate his case.

Shusterman counts six common arguments against popular art:

That popular art offers no aesthetic satisfaction; that popular art does not provide as aesthetic challenge of promote an active response; that popular art is superficial and does not appeal to the intellect; that popular art is not creative and is not innovative in its forms and styles; that popular art is non-critical, conformist and formula based; and that popular art is not stylistically developed.

For every one of these arguments against the aesthetic value of popular art Shusterman is offering a counter example or claim in order to show how popular art (in his case, rap music) does have the traits that on account of their absence popular art is denied aesthetic value.

Richard Shusterman's "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" and large parts of his aesthetic philosophy thought aims to oppose the elitist take against popular art, such as Dwight Macdonald's "A theory of Mass culture" which sees popular art as a threat to the "high arts" and the public's intellect. Shusterman does not subscribe to a normative judgment of high or popular art, but rather wishes to base aesthetic judgments on art's concrete everyday function in society.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Contemporary politics of masculinity

In the epilogue of "Masculinities" R.W. Connell is attempting to describe the politics of masculinity in contemporary times, flowing the works of Goode and Godenzi which show that despite openness to challenging claims made by feminism, men still have a strong hold in the material world and the equality is still far away. Connell is suggesting a model that has four dimensions of gender relation to try to account for the interests of men in contemporary patriarchy:

Power: man have favorable positions in business, state affairs, public spaces, the family, enforcement agencies and the means to generate violence. On the other hand: men are usually the ones who are arrested and executed, they are the main target of military violence and of liberal economic competition.

Division of labor: men's income is twice that of women and they enjoy favorable position in the economy and have better access to opportunities in the men dominated system. On the other hand hazardous works are mostly held by men and they rate higher as sole-providers. They pay more taxes while welfare divides state income to their disadvantage.

Cathexis: men are given unreturned emotional support from women. Society (for instance the media and culture) favors men's pleasure over women's and legitimizes their sexual freedom. On the other hand men's sexuality is more alienated and restrained. There are less free to express their emotions and they are excluded from contact with their children during their early years.

The symbolic level: men control most of the cultural institutions and enjoy a higher level of recognition. On the other hand humanities studies are becoming more and more a feminine field and mothers enjoy greater legitimization as parents.

in relation to the body Connell notes how men's occupations make them more vulnerable to physical injury while on the other hand they are not required to wear restricting cloths or spend time and money on their appearance.

This "checks and balances" approach might give the illusion that the benefits of masculinity even out with its costs, but Connell makes sure to note that the advantages of masculinity often serve men who are not the same as those who suffers from its drawbacks, and this is where gender crosses with other categories such as race and class. If Connell is talking about a variety of masculinities, than there is a variety of social position that those masculinities provide. But this, for Connell, does not mean we should abandon the category of men all together.

Raewyn Connell – "Masculinities", 1995

Science of masculinity

Chapter two: Men's Bodies

Chapter 3: The Social Organization of Masculinity

Chapter 4: Live Fast Die Young - summary

Chapter 5: A Whole New World

Chapter 6: A Very Straight Gay

Chapter 7: Men of Reason

Chapter 8: The History of Masculinity

Chapter 9 : Masculinity politics

Chapter 10: Practice and Utopia

Contemporary politics of masculinity

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Degendering and recomposing hegemonic masculinity and gender relations

In chapter 10 of "Masculinities" (practice and utopia) R.W. Connell suggests the strategy of "degendering" as a means for social justice in gender relations. Degendering is not to be carried out just at the level of culture and institutions but should also work on the bodies themselves. The mission of such degendering politics is according to Connell to bring about change in the practice of bodily reflection and working through the agency of the body in order to find new ways for men to use their masculine bodies.

The argument for dgendering echoes out of the feminist debate about equality and difference and the fear that equality would result in assimilation. For Connell the same problem holds for the will to criticize hegemonic masculinity that, if indeed degendered, might lose some of its more positive things and throw out the baby with the bath water. For Connell, in order to call for social justice in gender relations we must call for difference and degendering at the same time. Research and Connell's discussion shows that gendered traits and practices are common to both genders and the symbolic reintegration of these can be rather simple: body builders can work at kindergartens, lesbians can wear leather jackets etc.

Forms of Action

Following Andrew Tolson Connell points to the fact the various men's groups (the general men's liberation movement) are problematic in the sense that you cannot adopt emancipatory strategies if you are the dominating group. Anti-chauvinistic male politics that seeks social justice actually works against the interests of those man who take part in it, and such a stance should aim at breaking men's unity, not reinforce it.

But for Connell such a form of politics is still possible, especially outside pure gender politics. Male solidarity for males' sake is problematic, but solidarity (with women) for other sakes has a lot of potential for change in gender relations. The crossing of class and gender politics (and ethnic politics as well) is especially interesting for Connell for the possibility it holds for unity which is not absolute male unity. Instead of a men's movement this will be a politics of alliances, with the struggle for social justice depending on the intersection of interests.

Education for Connell is one of the prime sites for this degendering politics. She holds that every education program must address a variety of masculinities and the crossing of race, ethnicity, nationality and class. Connell calls for a reorganization of knowledge from the point of view of the oppressed and for the pluralization of sources in education programs. Another requirement is the capacity for empathy often so lacking in hegemonic masculinity.

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Practice and Utopia

Chapter 10 of R.W. Connell's Masculinities discusses the meaning of knowledge about masculinity to questions of social justice in gender relation. For this end Connell holds that both existing practice and possible utopia are in need of scrutiny.

Connell research in Masculinities showed some changes in awareness towards gender relations starting from the 70's; however she holds that patriarchy is still very much the order of the day in contemporary western cultures, and that the change in historical consciousness is not yet manifested in the breakdown of the institutional and material structures of patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity.

The discussion of gender relations in the past two centuries are close, according to Connell, to introduce the demise of masculinity as we know it, with the wheels of change already in motion. Even reactionary stances regarding masculinity acknowledge the fact that masculinity is the subject of social transformation and is something which is currently under negotiation. Connell argues that no one assumes, and no one can any longer assume, that man and masculinity are just what they are.

In surveying the possible purposes of political action in the field of gender Connell distinguishes liberal pluralism and postmodernism. Both approaches according to Connell fail to bring into account the importance of practice, and not just politics or consciousness, in generating change or sustaining the current state of affairs. In the context of gender relations working towards social justice means to undermine straight men's favorable positions in social structures. This does not mean striving for uniformity, and Connell relies on Michael Walzer and his notion of complex equality in order to imagine the possibility of gender equality. Masculinity, in other words, does not need to be abolished but rather repositioned in the political and economical structure.

But focusing on hegemonic masculinity's material and political gains alone will, for Connell, miss the point. For patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity, as demonstrated again and again throughout "Masculinities", in sustained through bodily division which are themselves sustained through reflexive bodily practices. The social organization of these practices into a patriarchic gender order is the cause of the hierarchic social order. All this leads R.W. Connell to argue for the strategy of degendering – the dismantlement of hegemonic masculinity and the decomposition of gender relations.

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Masculinity Politics

Politics of Men and Politics of Masculinity

R.W. Connell opens chapter 9 of "Masculinities", titled "Masculinity Politics" by indicating the fact the public politics is masculine politics in almost every sense. Even in western countries women are still heavily underrepresented in power position, with a variety of formal barriers and hidden strategies to keep them out of the public sphere. Feminism has failed to mend to inequality but did manage to draw attention to it, and men's position regarding gender relations has become an object of politics.

Connell defines masculinity politics as all those process and struggles regarding the male gender and its position within gender relations. It is masculinity in need of an answer. Masculine politics for Connell wishes to trace the production and accumulation of gendered power, which for her stands at the base of some of the most crucial political questions of our time.

As stressed time and time again in Connell's Masculinities, there is no one masculinity but rather a number, not unlimited, of masculinities which are surveyed throughout 'Masculine Politics":

A therapy of masculinity

The challenges brought about by the feminist attack on patriarchy have led to the formation of a type of masculine politics which focuses on healing the wounds caused to heterosexual men by changes in gender relation. Connell describes the emergence of therapy groups and literature which attempt to reconcile men's denounced position and to soften their guild caused by feminist criticism.

The therapy of masculinity, according to Connell, is not so much about supporting the reform of gender relation as it is about finding a relevant political position within it. The foundation of this politics is that of cooperative masculinity (Masculinities, chapter 3), which does not comply but does cooperate with hegemonic masculinity. In this stance, the men do nor bear the blame for the wrongs of hegemonic masculinity, but are also not oppressed by it. The therapeutic practice and the images of the mytho-poetic movement tend to narrow the gap between men and women and to allow for adaptation in the field of personal relationships, unlike the more inflexible types of masculine politics which follow.

The Gun Lobby: Defending Hegemonic Masculinity

For Connell to preserve to rule of hegemonic masculinity is to preserve a whole institutional and ideological system. She relates to the example of the gun lobby and the NRA which has strong masculine characteristics and which ties masculinity with firearms and heroism. Despite some evidence against the link between masculinity and the heroic violence, Connell holds that the images of male heroism bear cultural relevance. They produce epitomes of masculinity which are an essential part of the politics of hegemonic masculinity. Defending hegemonic masculinity is not a unified campaign, but rather one which takes place in a variety of, often contradicting, contexts and institutions, all working to preserve men's prominent role in all spheres of society.

Gay Liberation

R.W. Connell holds that the main alternative to hegemonic masculinity in western recent history is that of gay masculinity, and that the most explicit political opposition to hegemonic masculinity was articulated by the homosexual liberation movement. The initial objectives of the gay movement regarded mostly private rights, but have slowly, especially with the breakout of AIDS, began to form a politics of pressure groups reminiscent of those of ethnic minorities, seeking collective rights. Connell argues that masculine politics is inseparable from the gay presence around it. Yet the homosexual community is not an automatically opposition to hegemonic masculinity, but rather an alternative which has a presence that prompts a dynamic of change and negotiation within masculine politics.

Exit Politics

The concept of practice implies that social action is always creative, and for Connell this means that straight men can also resist hegemonic masculinity and fight patriarchy. The men liberation movement attempted, since the 70's, to create new gender relations based on social justice. Though ambivalently accepted by feminism, attempts to organize male movements in support of the women and gay liberation movements, "refusing to be a man", have been prevalent. This anti-chauvinistic politics sometimes resorted to gender vagueness such as cross-dressing and drag shows as a form of cultural protest. Connell argues that masculinity is shaped in relation to a comprehensive structure of power and in relation to general symbolization of difference. Anti-chauvinistic male politics is directed towards to former, while crossing gender lines is directed towards to latter. According to Connell exit politics operates at the edges of mass sexual politics, as the possibility of negating hegemonic masculinity. For Connell this type of masculine politics represents the most significant chance for change in the gender order of our time.

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Friday, July 22, 2011

Thursday, July 7, 2011